Increasing demands on psychological therapists working in the National Health Service are making them suffer rising levels of depression and reduced wellbeing.

That is the finding of the New Savoy Partnership’s annual staff wellbeing survey for 2016.

The survey found that 48 per cent of the 1227 NHS staff members reported that they had felt depressed in the last week some, most or all of the time. The equivalent figure in the 2015 survey was 46 per cent and in 2014 it was 40 per cent.

Other questions in the survey showed that the respondents are in the bottom 61-80 per cent of the population for wellbeing, based on their scores on the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale.

Eighteen per cent of respondents have reported experiences of discrimination at work from managers, team leaders or colleagues.

Professor Jamie Hacker Hughes, Vice President of the British Psychological Society, said:

“Our latest psychological wellbeing survey demonstrates a sustained increase in levels of stress and depression in our psychological healthcare workforce, together with a perception of increasing demands.

In response to this, and on the basis of the Psychological Wellbeing Charter which we launched last year, the British Psychological Society, together with New Savoy, is working with trainers and providers UK-wide to implement a range of initiatives to reduce stress and stigma and to increase wellbeing in this vital sector of healthcare.”

The New Savoy Partnership is a coalition of organisations that came together in 2007 to persuade government to recognise the value of psychological therapies provided free on the NHS.